House of Cards

A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street

By: William Cohan

Narrated by: Alan Sklar

Length: 25 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's summary

In March 2008, Bear Stearns, a swashbuckling 84-year-old financial institution, was forced to sell itself to JPMorgan Chase for an outrageously low price in a deal brokered by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who was desperately trying to prevent an impending catastrophic market crash. But mere months before, an industry-wide boom had "the Bear" clocking a record high stock price. How did a giant investment bank with $18 billion in cash on hand disappear in a mere 10 days?

In this tour de force, Cohan provides a minute-by-minute account of the events that brought America's second Gilded Age to an end. Filled with intimate portraits of the major players, high-end gossip, and smart financial analysis, House of Cards recounts in delicious narrative form the dramatic events behind the fall of Bear Stearns and what it revealed about the financial world's progression from irrational boom to cataclysmic bust. House of Cards is the Rosetta Stone for understanding the dramatic and the unprecedented events that have reshaped Wall Street and global finance in the past two years.

©2009 William D. Cohen (P)2009 Tantor

Interesting

Interesting but dragged on too long. It was also very technical so if you don't have a business background, this one will put you to sleep.

Balanced and Authentic

This author does a masterful job of illuminating the complex causes of the current economic crisis through the voices of key players in the demise of Goldman. Great read by a fine narrator.

House of cards

Very good book on the recent financial mess. the book goes into great detail. if you are interested in understanding the players and what REALLY happened, listen to this book.

Great summary of the 2008 financial collapse

Want to know what happened in 2008? Here's the book. Its long but very comprehensive

Not "Hubris and Wretched Excess"

If you're looking for tales million-dollar coat racks, this isn't the book for you. Cohan has a produced a well-written examination of the managers and management which preceded the Bear Sterns crash. He expected to to find the cause of the 2008 meltdown there. Cohan tries that idea on, but it doesn't really fit; and he's too good a reporter to stick to a script that doesn't begin to explain the facts.

On the other hand, twenty years ago, I had a front-row seat to a similar financial implosion. The cast of characters was very familiar. The elemental forces of contracting credit seem to force people into certain roles.

But the reader will have to decide. This is not a book which pretends to have all the explanations. It does have an important story to tell, and tells it well.

Well read, but overproduced

The story of the rise and fall of Bear Sterns, the investment banking group as told through its three day free fall and collapse and then in flash back to its beginnings, rise, nadir then end, finally moving forward to related matters: the collapse of Lehman Bros, and the sale of Merrill Lynch. Regarding content, the book is interesting but as others have noted here, poorly edited. Regarding the audiobook, the reader is excellent, but the audiobook seems to have been assembled rather than simply read. You can hear edit after edit as if alternate takes of paragraphs, sentences, even words were dropped in. This may not be audible if listening in a living room, but it certainly is audible with ear devices.

A Financial Thriller

House of Cards was a fabulous read. It was informative and entertaining -- a swashbuckler of sorts. Though I am not a financial professional, I was able to keep up with the jargon. (I did think though that the printed book would probably have had an index.) The book gave some insight into the workings of investment banks, their products, and the disastrous impact of the subprime mortgages and the housing bubble on those banks. Narrator Alan Sklar captured the excitement of the period. I am recommending the book to those interested in the subject.

True (White Collar) Crime

William Cohan in House of Cards tells the sordid tale of the fall of Bear Stearns during the economic disaster of 2008-2009. One of the world’s oldest and largest investment banks went belly-up in a matter of days and Cohan spares the reader no details. This book is an autopsy, a crime scene investigation, an analysis of greed and simple stupidity. The book might run a little long for some (468 pages) and contain more detail than others might prefer. It is an eye-opener though worthy of every citizen who wants to be informed about the caliber of people who ran one of the premier investment banks in the world. Goodness! The reading of Alan Sklar is excellent.

Very detailed. Very deep. Amazing.

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I recomend just to someone that is very very interested in the Bear Stearns history.

Great Financial Crisis In Layman's Terms

Hose of Cards is well written and read in a calm & comforting way -- good for a high-wire very real life narrative. If you have any interest in financial history this is a must-read.